f

Chuckling, he shook his head and said:

"Still, my goods aren't cheap, my dear friend… uh… Sunny? A good Memory will cost you a dozen shards, at least. Much more if you want something really useful. Are you sure you have the means to shop here in my emporium? How many shards can a slum rat like you have?"

Sunny blinked.

"I think there was a misunderstanding. Have you seen me? Do I look like someone who would ever be able to buy something from you? Of course not! I've never even absorbed a single soul shard, that should tell you how many of them I have."

Kai gave him a strange look.

Because of how confident Sunny had been while traversing the ruins, he must have assumed that his companion was sufficiently powerful. However, now he suddenly learned that Sunny had never absorbed any soul essence. With his ability to sense lies, the charming archer would know that it was the truth.

Well, of course it was. He absorbed plenty of shadow fragments, instead.

Sunny gave away that misleading secret on purpose. He didn't want Night to start questioning the amount of soul shards he was about to spend. Letting the archer think that he was too obsessed with wealth to expend any on increasing his power would, hopefully, lessen the impact a bit.

Meanwhile, Sunny shook his head.

"No, no. Kai here is the one who'll be handing you the shards. I'm just here to point him at the right ones. I have an eye for good Memories, you see."

By which he meant that his eyes were literally capable of peering into the very essence of Memories and discerning their true traits. But neither of them needed to know that.

Stev scratched the back of his head. fɾeewebnoveℓ.co๓

"Uh… well. In that case, take a look around. Ask me any questions if something catches your eye."

Then he glanced at Night and scoffed.

"You could have just asked me for advice, you know? It's not like I can lie to you."

Kai smiled with embarrassment.

"Oh. Ah… yeah, sorry."

When Stev walked away, he leaned to Sunny and whispered:

"So the favor you wanted from me is to pretend to buy a Memory and then give it to you, so that no one knew that you have a hidden ace?"

Sunny stared at him. Actually, it was a good theory. Having a weapon or tool that no one knew about was a very good advantage.

Unfortunately, Kai didn't really know who he was dealing with.

Sunny shook his head.

"No. I don't want you to buy a Memory on my behalf."

Then, with an earnest smile, he added:

"I want you to buy around ten."

Kai's beautiful green eyes widened.

***

Leaving the charming archer struck dumb and speechless, Sunny walked away and started perusing the various Memories on display.

There were a lot of them. By his estimations, at least a hundred, if not more.

All sorts of weapons immediately attracted his attention.

There were straight swords, curved swords, estocs and rapiers, scimitars and sabres. Various daggers and knives called to him, shining in the bright light on the enchanted lanterns. There were a dozen or so of polearms, from spears to glaives to halberds to naginatas. Several battle axes were displayed nearby. Further away, war hammers, maces, and flails radiated a silent feeling of crushing force. A few bows received a dreamy look from Kai.

There were suits of armor, too. From leather to metal, light to heavy, scale to plate. Elegant, unrefined, graceful, barbarous… whatever a person could wish for. Some of them were shaped like actual armour, others looked like cloth garments.

Placed on tables, various objects begged for his attention. Gods only knew what enchantments they possessed…

Well, to be precise, gods and Stev.

And Sunny.

Walking among the Memories, he would periodically place his hand on them. Immediately, the inner weave of the Memory would be laid bare to his eyes, which were changed forever by the drop of Weaver's ichor.

Studying the logic of the weave, he was able to glimpse its purpose. Of course, there weren't any truly remarkable Memories in the hall. Who would want to sell something like that? However, even then, he managed to separate really good ones from simply acceptable, from borderline awful.

…That last category was what he came here for.

'Quantity over quality, remember?'

Sunny was almost done choosing the absolute worst Memories out of them all when his sight suddenly fell on a badly illuminated corner.

In that corner, covered in a thick layer of dust, stood a seemingly discarded suit of armor.

…When Sunny saw it, his hands slightly trembled.

Chapter 173 Black Armor

For a moment, Sunny froze. However, a second later he continued to behave just like before, as if nothing had happened.

The first rule of haggling — never let the enemy see that you're interested in buying something. And Sunny was dead set on haggling until Stev's ears started to bleed today.

Pretending as though he had not noticed the dusty armor, he walked around a bit more, slowly approaching the corner where it was displayed. Judging by the neglect with which the armor was kept, the master of the Memory Market did not know its true value.

Sunny really wanted to keep it that way. Because, if he was right… that armor was much more valuable than anything else here.

He didn't know for sure, but suspected that it was nothing short of a true treasure.

Because he recognized it.

The suit of ancient plate armor was jet black in color, its design intricate and solemn. It radiated a feeling of dark resolve and stalwart, adamantine grace. All parts of it were perfectly fitted to one another, creating an almost seamless barrier of impenetrable steel.

…Or rather, stone.

Because the dusty armor was almost exactly the same as the one the Stone Saint was wearing.

Of course, there were some differences. For starters, this one was somehow more… impressive. It felt as though it had once belonged to a creature of higher status than the steadfast Shadow. While Shadow's armor was made out of dark granite, this one was cut out of pure black onyx. Its glossy surface seemed to absorb and devour any light that fell on it.

And that was just in its dormant state. Once it was animated like that of the Stone Saint… who knew how fearsome it would become?

Why was this treasure gathering dust in a badly lit corner of the Memory Market?

Sunny frowned. Yes, he was most likely the only person in the Dark City who had seen the formidable living statues up close. But still, everything about the onyx armor screamed of how incredible of a Memory it was. What was it doing here, neglected and seemingly forgotten?

He had a lot of questions.

Finally, he managed to reach the armor without showing how interested in it he was. With a false expression of boredom on his face, Sunny raised a hand and absentmindedly put it on the jet black breastplate.

A moment later, his mask of boredom almost cracked. His pupils widened.

What he saw beneath the surface of the armor shocked him to the core. The weave of ethereal diamond strings inside it was… was on a completely another level from anything he had ever seen.

It was much more complex and vast than even that of the Puppeteer's Shroud. Which was not surprising, considering that there were no less than six glowing embers connecting it all together.

And those embers were much larger and brighter than those inside his current Memories.

Sunny gulped.

In front of him, covered in dust, was an Ascended Memory of the sixth tier. Something that only a Fallen Terror could leave behind.

'Jackpot.'

***

His glee, however, did not last long. Almost instantly, Sunny noticed that there was something wrong with the weave of the onyx armor. It was… damaged.

Thousands of strings were torn apart, leaving the whole pattern broken and full of disharmony. Instead of flowing seamlessly, they floated in the darkness, untethered from each other and the nexuses. The whole thing was a mess.

That's why he couldn't feel any logic or purpose in the weave. It was simply not there anymore.

Sunny frowned.

How could a Memory stay damaged beyond repair? That didn't make any sense. Memories were supposed to repair themselves inside the Soul Sea as long as they were not completely destroyed. This rule was pretty much universal. It couldn't be broken.

Unless…

A seed of understanding appeared in his mind. ƒrēewebnovel.com

However, before Sunny could elaborate on his idea, Stev chuckled and put a giant hand on his shoulder.

"What an awesome armor, right, my dear friend Sunny?"

Saying that, he leaned forward and laughed.

Throughout Sunny's exploration of the Memory Market, Stev had approached him several times to describe the most alluring qualities of his wares or simply to chat. He was obviously bored out of his mind in this windowless hall.

Sunny stared at him and blinked a couple of times.

'If you only knew what kind of a priceless treasure this is, fool!'

"Of all the pieces of crap in this market of yours, this one is by far the most outrageous. I can hardly believe that you had the audacity to show it to people."

By which he meant that it was genuinely the best Memory in this whole room, if not in the whole castle — except for Gunlaug's golden armor, of course.

However, if it sounded as though he was blaming Stev for being shameless and trying to sell people an utter piece of crap… well, he couldn't do anything about that, right?

Stev sighed.

"Usually, I would get into an argument and try to defend my inventory, but I can't really disagree this time. This armor, no matter how awesome it looks, is indeed absolutely useless. It has been here from long before I was put in charge of the market, actually. I even consider it to be a sort of mascot."

Sunny scratched the back of his head.

"How come no one ever bought it?"

He was pretty sure that he knew, but needed to hear what was Stev's explanation to glean how much the giant man understood.

Stev shrugged.

"Why would anyone buy it? Have you not noticed that it's made of stone? Like, actual stone? It's so heavy that not even Tessai can move under all the weight. Maybe an Awakened would be able to, but to us Sleepers, wearing this armor is pretty much like trying to walk around dressed in a mountain. And that stone is not that hard to break, too."

He looked at the onyx armor and sighed.

"Actually, this armor has quite a story. It once belonged to a member of the legendary cohort that conquered this Castle. Some even say that it belonged to the first Lord himself. Supposedly, it had an enchantment that made it much lighter back then."

He looked at the armor with doubt.

"But when they were fighting some ancient terror, maybe the Spire Messenger who lived here, the armor was seriously damaged. Something went very wrong, the enchantment was broken, and it turned into a piece of stone. It's so damaged that even the Spell can't make sense of it, simply describing it as unknown that, unknown this... "

Sunny had to force himself to not hold his breath.

The Stone Saint was, supposedly, created by one of the Unknown. It made sense that the armaments of her kind were, too. frёewebnoѵel.ƈo๓

Regardless, it didn't matter that much. He was now pretty sure that he knew why the onyx armor was remaining in its dormant form and couldn't repair itself.

It had to do with the difference between the Sleepers and the Awakened.

Once a Sleeper finished his trial by walking through a Gateway, they would take the final step to becoming a true Awakened. Their way of entering the Dream Realm would change, their Aspect would unlock a second Ability, and their core would evolve to the next rank.

There was a quantitative jump in power, but most of the difference came from the qualitative one...

Chapter 174 Shopping Spree

Just like Dreamers gained the ability to perceive and interact with Soul Cores, Awakened were able to interact with Soul Essence. By channeling it inside their bodies, they were able to utilize it more efficiently and achieve greater results.

The ability to channel soul essence was also vital to unlocking the full potential of higher rank Memories. Besides the general rarity of such Memories, there was another reason why Legacy clans did not just equip their scions with weapons of tremendous power and let them sail to the Gateway without meeting any resistance.

It was because Sleepers simply had no way to activate powerful enchantments. Even Gunlaug was mostly using his Transcendent armor just for its durability, with a single passive enchantment serving as a nice, but unimportant bonus. In the hand of an Awakened with the ability to channel soul essence into it, the golden armor would have been far more formidable.

Which is where the paradox that rendered the onyx armor unusable came into play.

From his experience dealing with the Stone Saint, Sunny knew that her armor, just like the strange creature itself, had a very special spellweave. It was, in essence, a living armament. Unlike most Memories that could function on their own, it was simply a piece of dead stone when the main enchantment wasn't active.

So, after the onyx armor was damaged, it had to be awoken with soul essence to assume its true form and repair itself. However, there was no human on the Forgotten Shore capable of channeling soul essence, and so it remanded broken, which in turn made it useless to all the humans here.

'What a shame… that I'll be able to buy it for a measly sum of soul shards from these fools and feed it to my Shadow, ha!'

Sunny didn't really care whether the armor was intact or not. All he cared about was that it had six Ascended embers that his Stone Saint could devour. Maybe she'll even gain something extra because of her close affinity with the armor… after all, they came from the same source!

For a moment, Sunny considered the idea that his Shadow might refuse to destroy the Memory for the same reason… but then discarded it. She was just a Shadow, after all. His will was her will, right?

Now all that remained was to make the purchase…

Sunny scoffed.

"So it's, uh… just a decoration? How tacky."

Shaking his head, he threw one last glance at the onyx armor, forced himself to turn away, and continued to walk around the Memory Market.

Ten minutes later, he walked over to Kai and silently handed him the rucksack. Then, he named the Memories he wanted him to buy. freewёbnoνel.com

The charming young men blinked a couple of times, then said:

"Wait… you weren't joking? You really want to buy t—ten Memories?"

Sunny frowned at him and hissed:

"Keep your voice down! We need people to think that you are the one buying them, remember?"

Kai hesitated, then massaged his temples.

"Sunny, my friend… don't take it the wrong way, but you do know how much Memories cost, right?"

Instead of answering, Sunny gestured to the rucksack.

"Open it, you idiot."

The archer sighed and opened the clasp of the rucksack.

Then, he almost dropped it.

Inside the crude backpack, dozens of soul shards were softly glowing in the dark. There were around seventy of them in there, at least.

Kai's hands trembled. Raising his head, he stared at Sunny with wide eyes and whispered with horror:

"S—Sunny! Where did you get all these shards?!"

Seventy shards was more than most of the people in the Dark City would see in their lifetime. The contents of the unassuming rucksack were enough to start a chain of bloody conflicts that could culminate in a small war. ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm

Sunny stared at him and shrugged.

"What do you mean? They were just gathering dust in my bedroom. I would bring more, but the rest wouldn't fit in the rucksack."

Kai looked as though he was on the verge of fainting. Then, he blushed in embarrassment.

'Ah, I bet he's remembering how he was bragging about being rich and tried to bribe me with a promise of ten whole shards, which, in his words, was a small fortune. Ha!'

While Sunny was silently gloating, a sudden shadow ran over the beautiful archer's face. In a small voice, he said:

"Wait, Sunny. Did you say "bedroom"?"

Sunny raised an eyebrow.

"Sure. Why?"

Kai shut his eyes.

"So you actually live in that cathedral?"

There was no point in denying it anymore, really.

"That's right."

Looking at Sunny with a pleading expression, the charming young man asked:

"Then what about the Fallen Devil? Is there really a Fallen Devil in that cathedral?"

Sunny looked at him with confusion.

"That bastard? Yup, he's there. What about him?"

A shaky breath escaped from Kai's mouth. Looking weak and defeated, he shook his head, opened his mouth, then closed it again and simply stared at a wall for some time.

He had the look of a man who suddenly realized that nothing in the world made sense anymore.

When Kai finally regained his ability to speak, his enchanting voice sounded strangely listless.

"I'll… I'll go buy the Memories, I guess."

Sunny offered him a bright smile.

"That'd be great! Thanks!"

Shaking his head, the archer called Stev over and slowly listed the Memories that Sunny told him to buy — including the damaged onyx armor.

With each next one he named, Stev's expression grew weirder and weirder. By the end, he was almost green.

"...Uh. Night, buddy. I really don't want to offend our friend Sunny and your choice of advisers… but you literally chose the ten worst Memories I have in the inventory, by far! If it was anyone else, I would have been ecstatic to get rid of them. But… but… I simply can't do this to you! Please, reconsider!"

Kai glanced at Sunny, asking what to do. It seemed that he didn't want to see his new friend make a terrible mistake.

Sunny smiled.

"Worst, you say? You said it yourself, right? Everyone heard that? I guess you'll give us a big discount then!"

Stev stared at him with a bizarre expression on his face. Then, he said:

"I don't think you understand. When I say worst, what I mean is that they're… trash! Complete trash! You do understand what trash means, right?"

Sunny shrugged.

"Well, you know what they say. One man's trash… is another man's breakfast. Wait, no. Another man's… uh… treasure? Yeah, treasure. That's right…"

***

Some time later, in an empty corridor of the Bright Castle, Kai took Sunny by the hand. A moment later, several sparks of energy traveled between them.

Sunny tilted his head and listened to the silence. Soon, he heard the faintly familiar voice of the Spell whisper:

[You have received a Memory…]

[You have received a Memory…]

[You have received a Memory…]

After the tenth announcement, everything grew quiet again.

Sunny grinned. Just like that, he had gained ten Memories to feed to his Shadow. He even managed to purchase a tier-six Ascended armor for the laughable sum of seven soul shards.

What a bargain.

'Ah, it's good to be rich!'

However, soon the grin disappeared from his face. Instead, something dark glistened in his eyes.

It was time to have a talk with Nephis.